Suddenly a figure on horseback was seen coming at a hard gallop toward the little group surrounding Captain Dominguez. "It's Harding!" gasped Jack, as the figure drew closer, and indeed it was the former West Pointer. But he was in sad case. His shirt was torn almost from his back, his features blackened and seared, and a red stain showed upon his chest. "He was in that explosion, the precious scoundrel!" grated out Buck, as his eye took in these details. "He was one of the fellers that set that fire." Straight for the little party Harding rode. But before he reached them two Mexican troopers interposed. They raised their carbines and the next moment would have been Harding's last, but for Jack. "Don't let them fire!" he begged. The captain shouted an order and the troopers lowered their weapons. Straight on for the party rode Harding, toppling out of his saddle as he reached them. The fellow was badly wounded. He had been struck by a flying splinter in the explosion of the dynamite. "Ah, a countryman of yours," remarked the captain, with a tinge of sarcasm. "You should be proud of him, senors." But Jack was on his knees beside Harding. "Where is my father, Harding? Tell me quick!" "I will," gasped out the wounded man. "Madero had him tied in that grove yonder. He wished him to see the destruction of his mine, he said, and----" The man fainted. Rascal as they knew him to be, the boys were soon applying such remedies as they could--all but Jack, that is. The boy, on Harding's pony, was off at lightning speed for the grove Harding had indicated. As he entered it, he spied Mr. Merrill tied, as Harding had said, to a tree. Of the meeting between father and son we prefer to let each reader draw his own mental picture. "Merrill, forgive me!" breathed Harding, who had recovered from his swoon a few moments after as Jack and his father came up from the grove. "I may forgive you, Harding," rejoined Jack, "but I can never forget." And forgive Jack did, as he showed by interceding for the man and having him removed to a hospital near Rosario. Harding ultimately recovered and of his further movements we have no knowledge. He fared better, however, than Hickey, Divver and Rafter, who were captured by the government forces and sentenced to death by a summary court-martial. Mr. Merrill rapidly explained that he had ridden ten miles or more from the mine with Harding before he became suspicious. He then asked Harding point blank where his son was, and the fellow's reply had been to give a peculiar whistle. Thereupon several insurrectos had leaped from the bushes and made the mine owner captive. As Harding had told Jack, Madero, with fiendish cruelty, had tied him in the grove to witness the annihilation of his own mine.